Multiraceway knitting machine with versatile setout feature



April 29, 1969 L. A. BECKENSTEIN 3,440,833

MULTIRACEWAY KNITTING MACHINE WITH VERSATILE SETOUT FEATURE Filed Aug. ll,el966 Sheet of 2 INVENTOR. Leonard A. Beckenstein Witness ,fiosal md 7Z4; ATTORNEY April 2 1969 1.. A. BECKENSTEIN 3,440,838

MULTIRACEWAY KNITTING MACHINE WITH VERSATILE SETOUT FEATURE Filed Aug. 11, 1966 Sheet ,2 of 2 34 IOA 4 w l 24 v Z 26 j FiQwZA. Figu40 INVENTOR. I Leonard A. Beckenstein Witness BY 6M flafmt wwl 724$ ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,440,838 MULTIRACEWAY KNITTING MACHINE WITH VERSATILE SETOUT FEATURE Leonard A. Beckenstein, Farmingdale, N.Y., assignor to The Singer Company, New York, N.Y., a corporation of New Jersey Filed Aug. 11, 1966, Ser. No. 571,774 Int. Cl. D041) 9/00, 15/76 US. CI. 6650 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This invention relates to knitting machines of the independent needle type and in particular to a knitting machine that may be easily set up to accommodate sundry small stitch-effected patterns.

Typical of machines with which the invention is useful is the double raceway circular knitting machine depicted in United States Patent No. 2,941,383, assigned to the instant assignee. As shown and described in Patent No. 2,941,383 needles are provided with butts at respective levels that coincide with the respective raceways. Such a feature allows for the needles to be so arranged that the high butt and low butt needles periodically appear about the periphery of the needle cylinder of the machine-cg, high butt, low butt, high butt, low butt, etc. or high butt, high butt, low butt, high butt, high butt, low butt, etc.whereby knit and tuck (or welt) stitches may occur according to a predetermined sequence to eifect patterning. The particular order in which the high and low butt needles occur is termed the setout of the machine, and to alter the particular setout of a given prior art machine, the following procedure must be followed: a cam section (e.g., element 35 of the aforesaid patent) is removed to expose the needles of the needle cylinder. Usually in machines of the type in question one section is left as a dummy section, i.e., without stitch-producing cams, whereby it may be easily removed to permit working on the machine. Then the needle cylinder is slowly rotated as by hand, and while so doing, the needles are selectively removed one by one and replaced with high and low butt needles as the case may be, depending on the setout necessary to effect the desired pattern. This is time consuming and often takes as much as a day to change the needle setout of a machine. In addition, cloth must be removed from the machine with such prior art practice, and also there is a great tendency to break needles, as such needles are removed. To alleviate these situations and to allow the setout to be altered in a matter of minutes, and without cloth removal, the present invention proposes the use of expandable knitting needles in multiraceway machines. An expandable knitting needle is one having a hook and at least one butt, which butt may be positioned in relation to such hook. With say the dummy section removed, needle setout may be changed by slowly rotating the needle cylinder, and while the needles pass the exposed part of the machine, by properly positioning the needle butts as necessary to effect the desired 3,440,838 Patented Apr. 29, 1969 ice pattern. In this way, the needles need never be removed from the knitting machine to effect setout, and hence the time to set up a multiraceway machine to produce a new type fabric is immensely reduced.

In the description which follows, not only is a presently preferred form of expandable needle shown and described in the environment of a double raceway machine, but so too is means for automatically altering the relative positions of the parts of such needles, whereby setout can be achieved in a matter of seconds.

A principal object of the invention is to provide a knitting machine wherein the setout of its needles may easily change.

Another object of the invention is to provide a multiraceway knitting machine having a needle bed of expandable needles, the butts of which may be set to ride in ditIerent ones of the raceways of the machine.

Another object of the invention is to provide a knitting machine having a needle bed of expandable needles and means for automatically altering the dimensions of such needles according to a predetermined pattern to change the setout of such knitting machine.

The invention will be described with reference to the figures wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a section of a double raceway knitting machine needle bed embodying the invention,

FIGS. 2A and 2B are elevational views, in section, respectively showing the raceways of the machine depicted in FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 is a perspective view diagrammatically showing an arrangement for automatically adjusting the setout of a knitting machine, and

FIG. 4 is an elevational view, in section, useful for describing the automatic setout aspect of the invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a plurality of expandable latch type knitting needles 10 are slidably restrained in the slots 12 of a knitting machine needle bed 14 by means of spring bands 16, 18. The needles 10, as shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, are each composed of two sections, viz., a hook part 10A and a butt part 10B. The hook part 10A in this form of the invention is provided a boss 20 that serves as a cam activated needle butt for drawing stitches. The butt part 10B is provided with a butt 22 and a tooth 24. The tooth 24 is designed to reside in either of two spaced apart recesses 26, 28 in the hook part 10A.

Each cam section of the knitting machine is provided with cams arranged as schematically shown in FIG. 1. A first raising cam 30 serves to define one of two raceways and operates to raise certain of the needles to tuck level; a second raising cam 32 defines the second of the two raceways and operates to raise other of the needles to knit level. As shown, the setout of the needles in the needle bed 14 is such that alternately the successive needles knit, tuck, knit, tuck, etc. That is the needles 10 which knit are set up as shown in FIG. 2B, with their teeth 24 so residing in their respective recesses 28 that the needles are elongated. The needles 10 which tuck are set up as shown in FIG. 2A, with their teeth 24 so residing in their respective recesses 26 that such needles are truncated. Regardless of which raising cam has elevated a given needle, such needle is lowered by means of a stitch cam 34 that operates on the boss 20 of such needle.

Consider now what is necessary to change the setout of the needles 10 in the bed 14. The cam section containing cams 30, 32, 34 is removed. Then, while the needle cylinder is rotated slowly, the bosses 20 of selected needles are pulled outwardly away from their bed 14 and against the tension of the spring bands 16, 18, those selected needles which are to be shortened having their butt parts 10B pushed upwardly so as to position their respective teeth 24 for residing in their recesses 26 (s FIG. 2A); and those selected needles which are elongated having their butt parts B pulled downwardly so as to position their respective teeth 24 for residing in their recesses 28 (see FIG. 2B). When the bosses 20 are released, the hook parts 10A return to within their respective slots 12 under action of the spring bands 16, 18, whereby the two needle parts of each needle come into operative engagement to effect either a high butt or a low butt needle. In other words, a new setout has been altered without ever removing a single knitting needle from its bed 14, and corollarily in a comparatively short time, and without breaking needles or having to remove cloth from the machine. With the cam section containing cams 30, 32 and 34 back in place, each knit stitching needle is raised by the cam 32 acting on the butt 22 to cause the tooth 24 of the needle part 10B to push into the recess 28 to urge the needle part 10A upwardly; each tuck stitching needle is raised by the cam 30 acting on the butt 22 to cause the tooth 24 to push into the recess 26 to urge the needle part 10A upwardly. Since the needle recesses (26, 28) and needle teeth (24) in this form of the invention are generally sawtooth in nature, and would permit the needles 10 to come apart were the butts 22 to serve for stitch draw purposes, the needle bosses 20 themselves are instead employed like needle butts and, regardless of which cam (30 or 32) elevates the needles, the bosses 20 all contact the cam 34 for needle lowering purposes.

To alter needle setout automatically the dummy cam section, above referred to, is replaced by a setout adjusting cam section, the parts of which are as shown diagram matically in FIG. 3. The cam section of FIG. 3 has a push out cam 38, a pair of neutralizing cams 40, 42, and a hold down cam 43. The push out cam 38 has a lip 39 that cooperates with the bosses 20 of the needles 10, and serves to take the needle parts 10A and 103 out of operative engagement (see FIG. 4). The cams 40, 42 cooperate to position the butt parts 10B so that their respective teeth 24 locate at a neutral level, preferably approximately midway between the respective recesses 26, 28 of the needles 10. That is, the parts 108 of the high butt needles 10 are acted upon and lowered by the neutralizing cam 40, and the parts 10B of the low butt needles 10 are acted upon and raised by the neutralizing cam 42. As the neutralized needles 10 progress away from the cams 40, 42 they meet with a pattern wheel 44, e.g., a patterning device as shown and described in United States Patent No. 2,055,508. The pattern wheel 44 is supported by the setout adjusting cam section and is provided with jacks 46 selectively positioned according to the setout desired, about the periphery of the wheel 44. Presence of a jack 46, when a butt 22 has been carried by the needle cylinder into the pattern wheel 44, causes the butt part 10B concerned to be carried upwardly so that its tooth 24 engages with the recess 26 of its respective part 10A. Absence of a jack 46 allows the needle butt 24 that coincides with the vacant pattern wheel space to pass on through the wheel 44 without being affected by the wheel. Instead, such unafifected needle butt 22 contacts a cam 47 that lowers the butt part 10B so that its tooth 24 resides within the recess 28 of its respective part 10A. To be noted is that by the time the needle butts 22 enter the pattern wheel 44 the operative surface 39 of the push out cam 38 has receded, allowing the spring bands 16, 18 to urge the needle parts 10A and 1013 into contact, but without their respective teeth 24 and recesses 26, 28 engaged. Because of this, the hold down cam is employed, whereby it prevents the needle parts 10A from being urged upwardly as the teeth 24 seek their recesses 26 in response to action by the wheel 44. Thus, it may be seen that by merely setting up the pattern wheel 44 with suitably arranged jacks 46, setout may be effected within a matter of seconds, i.e., by a single turn of the needle cylinder, a job which heretofore had taken upward of a whole day.

While the invention has been described in its preferred form, it is to be understood that the words which have been used are words of description rather than of limitation, and that changes within the purview of the appended claims may be made without departing from the true scope and spirit of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. In a knitting machine of the independent needle type, a needle bed having a plurality of slots therein, extendable knitting needles contained in said slots, said knitting needles each having a first needle part including a hook and a second needle part including a butt, means including a tooth formed on one of said needle parts and at least two spaced apart tooth accommodating recesses formed on the other of said needle parts for selectively locking said needle parts into plural operative positions of said hook relatively to said butt wherein in each of said plural operative positions said needle parts cooperate like a knitting needle thereby to effect the setout of said needles, a system of needle actuating cams arranged adjacent to said needle bed for defining a plurality of separate needle butt engaging raceways, said means for selecting locking said needle parts into said plural operative positions being arranged to position said needle butts into engagement with selective ones of said plurality of separate needle butt engaging raceways, and a boss formed on one of said needle parts for use in separating said needle parts for repositioning into a different one of said plural operative positions.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said system of cams includes raising cams for cooperation with the butts of said needles to raise said needles to yarn receiving level, and a stitch cam for cooperation with said needle bosses to lower said needles from their yarn receiving level.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 including patterning means for use in selectively positioning the butts and hooks of the respective extendable needles with respect to each other in accordance with a predetermined sequence.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said patterning means includes means for ositioning all needle butts to a neutral level with respect to the hooks of said needles, and a pattern wheel adapted to engage selected ones of said needles to alter their butt levels with respect to their hooks, whereby the needles of said needle bed may be setout in a manner as defined by said pattern wheel.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 105,503 7/1870 Abels 6623 1,236,189 8/1917 Lomax 6638 1,435,716 11/1922 Montague 66-13 2,025,462 12/1935 Lombardi 6650 2,123,739 7/1938 Muller 66123 XR 2,127,178 8/1938 Lawson 66-123 XR 2,626,513 1/1953 Lombardi 66-50 2,861,441 11/1958 Green et a1. 6650 XR 3,097,510 7/1963 Brown 6650 3,283,540 11/1966 Levin 6650 3,315,494 4/1967 Farmer 6650 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,346,207 11/1963 France.

351,046 6/1931 Great Britain.

753,211 7/1956 Great Britain.

RONALD FELDBAUM, Primary Examiner.

US. Cl. X.'R. 

